Odysseus

Had Nige lost a couple more games with us a few points above the drop I wonder if fans would have been demanding he’d be sacked (again)? A charitable way to look at things was Lansdown wanted him gone end of the season but gave him a chance to prove himself this season (and it didn’t work).

That’s very true and also the case if you bring in this being a rare opportunity to unify the division. I don’t fully understands how it works and I haven’t heard anything about Fury possibly fighting Whyte. Joshua could be mandated to fight Usyk or Martin though as I understand.

Has Hearn made many fights like this with Arum and Warren? I’m a casual but from memory it’s always been difficult getting Matchroom vs BT fights on. From Warren’s comments today there seems to be issues around obligations in the contact? It almost reminds me of the Wilder - AJ negotiations. Then again, you’d think this upfront location purse and 50/50 split would solve these problems. As you said it must be 100% on as it’s clearly in the interest of both fighters.

To this day I don’t know how Steve Hilton and David Cameron managed to detoxify these upper class ******* to the average voter. They’re still the heartless nasty party but the brand just disappeared or lessened over the years. They no longer hate gay people but they still have no empathy for low skilled workers.

He’s an opportunist slug who’s always had an intuition of how to stay relevant. He went to US after being disgraced at the mirror being a talk show host who railed against gun ownership. When he failed over there and became a joke he gradually reinvented himself eventually finding targeting “snow flakes” or transgender people would endear him to the “These days you get arrested for being English” brigade. Now after bullying several high profile women in the media and becoming a bit stale now no one cares about transgender people he’s found an opportune moment to lay into the government and win some credit.

Compare this to a friend of mine in Brussels who left their job can keep their full salary for a year or maybe even 2. According to a certain odious politician they’re not a “real country though”.

The cutbacks were a ideological game from George Osbourne. There wasn’t much evidence behind what he did other than the private sector can be more “efficient”. Economists warned at the time austerity and hitting key public services wouldn’t grow an economy enough to tackle spiralling national debt. Labour’s original proposals to reduce the deficit at a much slower rate would have incurred interest but it would’ve grew the economy more sustainably and not left us so vulnerable.

I think Blair rightly receives criticism, at least before it become associated with the “hard left”. Muppets like Wes Streeting MP were only yesterday criticising the current Labour admin over its public spending proposals and to drop them. Which shows they’ve learned nothing from the mistakes of New Labour. He was also given a front page link in the Observer in the middle of a national crisis which says it all ?

I get some of the nuances of the debates around health care and even the history of the NHS and GPs arguably still being private providers. I think the NHS puts unhealthy pressure and demands on its staff. The public’s glorification of staff is almost toxic as it must encourage them further, when it should just be a normal occupation. I get that like personal responsibility I wouldn’t mind myself paying more more into healthcare be that an extra tax or form of insurance, or even localised systems similar to before. Everyone knows the NHS is bleeding money through upper management. I don’t mind having these discussions but only if it’s in a transparent and controlled forum. The NHS has been picked apart by private companies for decades and I don’t trust these vultures to not exploit the public if they ever get their way to break up the NHS. That’s why so many instinctively defend the NHS.

Any American I’ve met in this county begs to differ and are amazed no matter who you are you get live saving treatment for free. I’d rather have that for the many than the inconvenience of having to wait weeks longer for an MRI. The problem with our current health system is due to Tory underfunding and staff shortages.

I’ve been continuing to shop at my local Turkish food stores and despite health and safety queuing outside no bare shelves. My own theory for this? 1. Eastern heritage customers stock essential foodstuffs and plan better so they don’t have to panic buy. 2. The food stores are much more practical for the customer and what they actually need. There’s entire aisles for flours, pulses, nuts, grains. In our supermarkets you get a shelf for staples and then aisles for food you don’t need e.g. sweets, crisps, fizzy drinks, alcohol. I’m despairing seeing the British result to type and turn on their own through this. We all have reasons to leave the house and buy food, stop judging each other when the government have done **** all to stop people.

The Times can do what they like, there’s plenty of propaganda defending the government, that’s understandable. You believe in and support the government, that’s fine. My point is this soft lobby journalism manipulates people who ARE critical of the government into concentrating on largely unimportant gossip. Fair enough if there’s a real whistleblower who wants to expose the government but with the same journos it’s often a minister trying to change the story or settle a personal dispute with an adviser like Cummings.

It’s a soft article that paints Johnson as being momentarily misled in testing circumstances but then pulling through with the help of his ministers and advisers. It even says Johnson was uncomfortable about the phrasing of herd immunity. It says little about the real crisis facing the government. Getting the public fixated on “human drama” is what the Times does best. In this article Cummings comments are paraphrased and we don’t even know what he exactly said. That’s the purpose of lobby journalists. The government will do what it always does and blame everyone they possibly can before taking blame. They’re now getting ready to blame the public for this disaster and a lot of people here are helping them.

I think people should stop caring about what’s briefed in the Times or Telegraph. It only serves to distract the public from the bigger picture which is Johnson’s inaction on closing down public spaces and the potential manslaughter of NHS staff from not being supplied with PPE. This happened under Theresa May with Grenfell and Windrush where the right-wind press found scapegoats or ways to frame the story in a different way. Although it’s tempting to pile into Cummings after this story everyone should to stop and think whether they're being manipulated.

But wouldn’t you both rather the system was still generous and not punitive? That losing a job meant you had the security to either re-train or properly look for a new job without the financial anxiety? That’s how the system works in other countries still. There’s better ways to incentivise people to find work. It’s not like they were ever that generous unless you factored in social housing and child benefits. Not to mention the disabled people this government have killed through pip assessments. I don’t even know how anyone can claim UC right now considering you have to go for a face to face interview.